All eyes are on Mayor Bloomberg today as he travels to the Bronx to deliver his fourth – possibly his last – State of the City address. In choosing the Bronx as the venue for his speech, the mayor will enter a Democratic Party stronghold that is in terrible shape. Since Mr. Bloomberg’s likely leading Democratic opponent, Fernando Ferrer, was president of the Bronx for 14 years, the borough also reflects Mr. Ferrer’s political leadership. It’s not a pretty picture. By asking the hard question of why the Bronx faces such difficulties, Mr. Bloomberg will have, at Hostos Community College, an opportunity to put the mayoral issues into sharp relief.

According to a dispatch in yesterday’s New York Post, Mayor Giuliani’s Economic Development Corporation prepared a 1996 memorandum that called the Bronx under Mr. Ferrer an economic disaster. “The Bronx has generated fewer private sector jobs during the city’s economic recovery than any other borough,” it read. “The Bronx has the lowest ratio of jobs per resident of any other borough….Over 35% of personal income in the Bronx comes from welfare and other forms of public support.” The Bronx continues to lag in job creation. The vast majority of the city’s schools under registration review – those failing public schools the state may shut down – are situated in the Bronx. All told, the city’s most serious educational and economic problems are found there.

The Bronx venue also permits the mayor to highlight his signal strength: political independence. Recently, the mayor has been reaching out to unaffiliated voters. Mr. Bloomberg’s financial independence also means he can’t be bought by special interests. In contrast, the Bronx is controlled by a Democratic Party machine that has replaced electoral politics with a culture of nepotism. The Bronx County Democratic leader, Assemblyman Jose Rivera, has a son on the City Council and a daughter in the Assembly. The son of Bronx Congressman Jose Serrano serves in the state Senate. Another Bronx council member, Helen Diane Foster, inherited her seat from her father. State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr. has a son in the Assembly.

As columnist Andrew Wolf notes on Page 3, a corruption scandal involving political allies of Mr. Ferrer may soon emerge. A federal investigation into the embezzlement of campaign funds is thought to involve as many as nine Democratic Party officials and politicians. Fourteen subpoenas were issued in August. So the Bronx Democratic machine may actually be an issue in this year’s mayoral race. Mr. Bloomberg, who has focused on good governance and nonpartisanship during his term as mayor, may want to suggest that the Bronx isn’t well served by one party rule.

The Bronx setting also gives the mayor a chance to make his case on education reform. Last week, the mayor’s press secretary, Edward Skyler, criticized another mayoral hopeful, City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, for “bringing politics into our classrooms” after Mr. Miller promised to make education an issue in this year’s mayoral race. This despite the fact that the mayor himself held three education related events for the television cameras last week. But Mr. Bloomberg can’t expect to receive a pass on education. Last month’s Marist College poll showed that only 38% of New York’s voters approve of the mayor’s handling of the public schools – well below the mayor’s overall approval rating of 46%. It’s the voters, not Mr. Bloomberg’s opponents, who want the mayor to defend his policies.

Yet Mr. Bloomberg is most vulnerable when it comes to taxes. The mayor first saw his approval rating drop after he spurned his campaign promises and passed a property tax increase. He also raised the sales tax and, with the state, the income tax as well. He put through a big increase in the excise tax on cigarettes. The mayor’s approval rating has been on an upswing recently, especially after giving homeowners a $400 property tax rebate, but he’s never fully recovered from the initial loss of public trust. In the Marist poll, 51% of voters disapprove of the mayor’s record on taxes.

The mayor could take another step toward regaining the public’s confidence by promising to renew the property tax rebate at his speech this afternoon. It’s also necessary for Mr. Bloomberg to keep his promise to New Yorkers from last year’s State of the City speech, when the mayor said the temporary income tax and sales tax surcharges would sunset on time. “The personal income tax is going to sunset on schedule,” Mr. Bloomberg pledged. “The sales tax surcharge will also be phased out as scheduled.”

But lawmakers in Albany extended the “emergency” sales tax an extra year, until May 2005, and Mr. Bloomberg has begun to equivocate on whether New Yorkers will see either tax sunset this year. “I would like to see both those taxes,” the mayor told reporters last month, “sunset if at all possible the way the schedule called for.” If Mr. Bloomberg wants to repair his credibility on taxes, he would be well advised to find a way to make it possible. As these columns noted last week, Mr. Bloomberg appears to be a stronger candidate than he was in 2001.With a majority of New Yorkers telling pollsters it’s “time to elect someone else,” however, much hinges on today’s trip to the Bronx.